It is this sea-laden feel that is the book’s strength. Finn is born as a kind of accidental genetically modified hybrid of sea creature and human, and the suggestion is that she deliberately chose the sea over the land, and her family. In many ways, though, the tragedy that befalls the family is an ancient one: Finn is like a selkie from an Irish myth, but one whose skin could not be hidden away.

The futuristic setting does not spring so much from the needs of the narrative as from Jacobson’s desire to examine loss on a greater scale as well as a personal one. She is interested in what we will lose as a society as technology takes over our lives. It is an ambitious attempt, and mostly coherent, but Jacobson’s future becomes at times a slightly gadgety, K-Tel affair, with a few doomsday elements sketched in as background.

It is no surprise to learn that The Sunlit Zone was Jacobson’s PhD thesis. It tells more than it shows, and the central character is often barely present: but the overall effect, the sensation of it, is almost impossible to shake off, and that’s a rare achievement.